Which French Revolutionary figure thought black slaves could oversee monkeys for labor?
score:6
There are many mentions from French Enlightenment writers, which is not the same as Revolutionary, but I think more adequate to what you are looking for. This is because influences of Linnaeus and Buffon:
- Abbé Sièyes: he came to conceive a new working race from the crossing of Negroes with monkeys. See more on his text "Reasoned Exposition of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789)". I do not have access to this source, but this is probably what you are looking for.1
- Voltaire: this is different to what you're looking for. But in a similar fashion the famous thinker agreed that the race of the Whites was a superior species to that of the Negroes. According to him, Whites were superior to Negroes, and Negroes were "superior to monkeys, like monkeys are [superior] to oysters…" 2
I'm sure you can find more, specially regarding the events of the Haitian Revolution. For example, citations about Napoleon generals in Saint Dominque. Toussaint nickname was the "old black monkey".
Citations
- Seen in Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens (Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804), Chapell Hill, The University of South Carolina Press, 2004, pp. 174-175.
- Voltaire, Traité de Métaphysique, Cap. V: “Si l’homme a une âme, et ce que ce peut être”, 1737
Upvote:4
James' answer cleared up a critical factual error I had in my memory of this Frenchman's ideas. It was indeed Abbe Sieyes, but the the hierarchy for labor was different.
I offer the following from A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbe Sieyes and What is the Third Estate? (Bicentennial Reflections on the French Revolution) by William H Sewell Jr.
...Rather, the Third Estate, the working nation, is made up of "two peoples" who are not united but divided by their labor.
What Sieyes offers as a solution to the troubling duality of the working nation is a rather shocking fantasy: the production of new species of "anthropomorphic monkeys" to accomplish the passive labors," to be supervised by "negroes." This bizarre utopia would return humankind to the conditions of the antique polis of Sparta, where all manual labor would be done by slaves regarded as members of inferior species, and all the whites would be "directors of work" — which would give them the time and means to be educated and to become active and intelligent citizens. Manual production would no longer be carried out by two white peoples, but by five peoples, alternately called "races" or "species": whites, blacks, and three types of anthropomorphic monkeys.
It is notable that Sieyes cites as the advantage of this arrangement not that it would increase the supply of labor and hence material goods. The advantage is more moral than material: the inferior species would have "fewer needs" and above all would be "less capable of exciting human compassion." They could be exploited, in other words, with a clear conscience. The exploitable inferior species seem to include, for Sieyes, blacks as well as anthropomorphic monkeys. Without discussing the question, he places Africans in a position intermediate between whites and monkeys, and the fact that they would be mere "auxiliary instruments of labor" under guidance of the white citizen "heads of production" apparently causes him no moral anxiety.
(Chapter 5, "What is the Citizen? The Denial of Political Equality", pg. 155)
Utterly astounding.
This was the source I was looking for. Kudos to James for nailing the reference.
More post
- 📝 Which state capital did the Apollo 11 command module NOT visit after it returned from the moon?
- 📝 When did Warren Harding say "I am not fit to be president." Why?
- 📝 Is the Krishna (a god within Hinduism), an appropriated historical figure?
- 📝 Organisation of mercenaries
- 📝 New surnames for baptized natives
- 📝 Income distribution of major combatants before and after WWII?
- 📝 Why does Edinburgh Castle's one o'clock gun fire at 1pm instead of, say, noon?
- 📝 Was there really a Communist presidential nominee or political party in the 1876 election?
- 📝 Could the Russians Have Done Better at the Battle of Tsushima Straits Than They Actually Did?
- 📝 How did people first discover that food is food?
- 📝 Why is a month so different from a year or a day?
- 📝 Why are scientific and medical training so different?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that Sally Hemings' relationship with Jefferson was consensual on her part?
- 📝 Why was George Washington called Chief Magistrate?
- 📝 Was Fascism tied to any Specific Ideology Before Nazism and Italy's Fascist Party?
- 📝 Did the German people actually know Joseph Goebbels as the "Minister of Propaganda"?
- 📝 Did Machimoi fight in Phalanx formation?
- 📝 Gaulish logistics during Caesar's invasion
- 📝 Novgorod means "New city". Given such name, what were the old cities in the region?
- 📝 Instances of Jauhar around the world
- 📝 What is the oldest verifiably correctly translated written work?
- 📝 How to explain the Khalkhin Gol outcome in view of Soviet weakness and Japanese strength at that time?
- 📝 How long was a sea journey from England to East Africa 1868-1877?
- 📝 Why did the French Revolutionary General Pichegru defect to the Royalists?
- 📝 How was silver/gold mining done in colonial Americas?
- 📝 Why was Stalin so opposed to genetics?
- 📝 Why didn't Marathas rule Delhi officially?
- 📝 What major approaches to "class" as a theoretical category do historians commonly use?
- 📝 How long would it have taken to get to the Poconos in the early 1900s?
- 📝 Why did the offices of Shogun and Emperor never merge?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Which French Revolutionary figure thought black slaves could oversee monkeys for labor?
- 📝 Which was more revolutionary for its time: Television or Radio?
- 📝 Are there any documented examples of wooden ships which were in active service for 100 years or more? If not, what is the longest?
- 📝 Why didn't the Black Death result in favorable results for surviving peasants in China?
- 📝 Why was the area now known as Liberia chosen as the location for repatriation of African slaves in the US?
- 📝 Which European countries did not have a revolution in the aftermath of the French Revolution and why?
- 📝 What are the French gains after the American Revolutionary War
- 📝 What became of the French Revolutionary Religion and Calendar?
- 📝 Is there a primary source for Black Monday, April 13, 1360?
- 📝 For how long were freed slaves in Ancient Rome supposed to wear a Pileus hat?
- 📝 What evidence is there for inventions by slaves or former slaves in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 Which 'evidence' is there for a claim that 'Chinese discovered America in 636'?
- 📝 How could black men serve as officers in the US army during segregation?
- 📝 What was the primary motivation for a historical figure like Xenophon to create an extensive collection of written material?
- 📝 Were there any other systems which resemble the complex election procedure for the doge of Venice
- 📝 When did we figure out that Venus was too hot for humans?
- 📝 Did 17th Cent. French Gentlemen Necessarily Use a Scabbard for Dress Swords?
- 📝 Why did the French Revolutionary General Pichegru defect to the Royalists?
- 📝 Which Roman general was killed by his own soldiers for not letting them to loot a newly conquered city?
- 📝 What was the reason for inflation in Britain after the Black Death?
- 📝 Did the Portuguese and the Spanish have slaves on European soil working for them?
- 📝 Where could I find a map of the communes for Bavaria region before 1930?
- 📝 Could besieged medieval cities develop a micro-economy during wars to endure the siege for long time?
- 📝 MLK used "negro" several times in his "I have a dream"-address. Could white "liberals" at the time also use "negro" as a neutral word for blacks?
- 📝 Identification of the dagger/mini sword which has been in my family for as long as I can remember (and I am 80 years old)
- 📝 Which days in the Mayan calendar were most auspicious for performing sacrifices?
- 📝 When did people first try to limit which weapons could be used in war?
- 📝 Which calendar to use in English for non-European countries?
- 📝 "Three Pines" as code for British Loyalists during the Revolutionary War
- 📝 Was there a time when it was easier for slaves than citizens to access state-sponsored medical facilities in Ancient Rome?